The Path
By Pat Price
There once was a young cub scout that like to spend time at his grandmother's place in the
country. His grandmother had several acres of land where he could roam to his heart's content.
He would often sleep outside, in her back yard where the grass was tall and he could see millions
of stars at night.
His grandmother's neighbor had a nice vegetable garden that she watered from the nearby
stream. She liked to fetch water from the stream because she felt it was more healthful than the
water from the well. Each day she would walk to the stream with two old buckets, fill them both
with water and carry them back to her garden. The only problem was, one of the buckets was so
old it leaked water on the trip back from the stream.
The young cub scout asked the kindly lady why she continued to use the old leaky bucket, even
though it was often only half full by the time she returned to her garden. The lady pointed out the
beautiful flowers that grew beside one side of the path. The other side was brown and dusty, but
the side of the path with flowers was bright and colorful. The lady explained, "I plant flower seeds
on that side of the path and as I walk back to the garden from the stream, the leaky bucket waters
the flowers for me."
You see, we each have things that make us different. Just like that leaky bucket, we can choose
to be critical of the differences or we can choose to see how those differences make things more
beautiful.